The Flickr experiment: part 2

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Originally uploaded by benchadwick

This post is the output from the Flickr website apps to blog a photo. Just playing around to see how it works. Nice little bit of code given to tag the post, interested to see if that works...?

tags: Technology, Flickr

Finally mastered the Flickr iPhone App!

I downloaded the Flickr iPhone app around the same time as Adobe launched their Photoshop app. Having played around with both I'd come to the somewhat rushed conclusion that Flickr allowed multiple uploads whilst the Photoshop app allowed you to edit photos. Why I'm not a professional product reviewer I'll never know!


My experience of both apps pretty much stopped in its tracks after that. I'd no real use for them and the experience of using Flickr was still preferable from a laptop as opposed to the iPhone. However a random set of circumstances involving a new personal project (just bought a house) and a boring train journey from Liverpool to London yesterday has changed my perception somewhat. 


As many a novice to DIY will testify, speed dial 'home' on your mobile tends to be dusted off form it's University days of calling for money, laundry advice and how to poach an egg! I've found myself constantly on the phone to my Dad seeking advice for the more mature issues of sanding floorboards, using Polly Filler (incidentally this is a great advert that my Dad found!) and finding the right pipes to plumb the washing machine in.


I've also noticed that most of these calls are accompanied by the iphone photo! A picture really does paint a thousand words. I'd call, explain my problem then email over a couple of photos to illustrate my point. It seems to work well and the rates are cheap! All of which has culminated in a growing collection of photos on my iPhone that have a theme, a link and warrant being collated into something approaching a photo set, something the other random photos on there certainly don't. 

So, bored on the train, I decided to see what would be involved in uploading the floor renovating photos to Flickr. The results were pleasantly encouraging. You can add each photo to a set, give it a title and description and upload them as a batch instead of singularly (restriction of the Photoshop app). The T-Mobile WiFi on Virgin Trains is flaky at best so I was surprised at how well it coped with the task. The outcome was that I could relatively simply upload albums to Flickr from my phone whilst genuinely on the move. 


There were a couple of notable restrictions, however: you can't easily share the album from within the iPhone App and you can only email out one photo at a time. I'm such such basic functionality with be added in due course. 


So now I have a couple of sets on flickr, the old floor and the new floor albums which are the final output from an iphone enabled process. Documenting projects and experiences such as DIY using the iPhone camera and Flickr app is a great example of how the iphone technology can really underpin and support day to day activities in a way that is non intrusive and effective. That might sound a little deep, but I think it's important to establish reasons and use cases for technological advances rather than the pure innovation and technical development.  

The Google Chrome Comic Book

I stumbled across this comic and thought it might be of interest. A non-techy story of what Google is doing in terms of browser development.


http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/

BBC Test Match Special Widget

Introducing the new Test Match Special Widget to my blog. You can find it within this post or it's more permenant position at the bottom of the sidebar. If you use it, let me know your thoughts.

The Mendelssohn Effect

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's music is growing on me. I fear it may too be growing on the South Liverpool Rehearsal Orchestra's conductor too, although he probably would not admit to it.


I've always liked Mendelssohn and studied the Hebrides Overture at A Level. Although our analysis focused on the Scottish influences to the overture rather than studying Mendelssohn's music in particular, I find it is easier to identify a piece as Mendelssohn more so than other composers (not least because his name is written on the music in front of me!). With the orchestra we've already played the Scottish Symphony and now we've moved onto the Italian. What stands out is how relatively simple it is to hear the cultural heritage of both symphonies. My immediate impression on the first run through was that this is what the soundtrack to The Sopranos would have sounded like had television and HBO been around during Mendelssohn's time!


Like Schubert's Unfinished symphony that the orchestra played last year, Mendelssohn elicits strong melodic lines that I find myself repeating in the car from rehearsals and over the next few days. I also like the way he tends to couple the Trumpet (I'd say Brass section but there's only me and a Horn!) with the Horn in similar fashion to a lot of music we play by Beethoven, Dvorak, Rossini, Schubert etc., then almost from no-where send them their separate ways. The Trumpet part in particular often bears little resemblance to what's gone before and I confess it often takes me a few passes to piece it all together. The result is often quite an astute and poignant decoration of a more dramatic or climatic section of the music. (I hope I don't insult with the inclusion of 'astute'. It is meant to convey subtle, discrete writing that captures the poignancy of the Trumpet accompaniment).


The Mendelssohn isn't the only piece that has caught my attention this term. I'm really taking a liking to a lot of the repertoire. At the moment Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Tchaikovsky's Orchestral Suite No 4 (better known as 'Mozartiana') in addition to the Italian symphony make quite a set list during rehearsals. The Egmont offers some dramatic Trumpet blowing and the Mozartiana, although lacking in serious employment for the Trumpet, is great to listen to (while counting, obviously!). 


The concert is planned for the end of May, more details to follow.

YouTube and the IPL: Error Message!

I'm not all that bothered about the IPL or indeed T20. I watched a few internationals and a couple of the tournaments on TV but I still find there is something undignified about it. In short, too many 'non cricket shots' for a purist such as myself.


I was however, mildly interested to see how YouTube's handling of the IPL would work out. Streaming competitions on the internet, free to all, is undoubtedly the future and I'm sure for YouTube and some as yet undiscovered start ups there will be a huge amount of commercial success in such a venture. I'm just not convinced the IPL would be the platform I'd choose to launch it. 


I've found when trying to catch the odd IPL game over the past couple of years that I simply don't know enough about it for the game in front of me to be engaging. I barely recognise the team names, let alone 80% of the players. That makes it very hard to grasp at a hook with which to become interested. Exposure through YouTube and ITV4's coverage will help in that regard, but it's difficult to watch a game of cricket on TV as a neutral.


Like it's first day coverage (see picture) YouTube's broadcast venture with the IPL may have gotten off to a sticky start, but I'm sure the business model and technical challenges will be established and overcome through the IPL experience. 


In a few years when we're signing in to watch the latest stream from the Olympics, the IPL experience will seem insightful. 

Is there a Buzz about Google's Social Networking?

For some reason I'm becoming a fan of the instant impression! My iPad post came hot off the heals of Mr Jobs' comfy sofa seminar and now, less than 24 hours after Google launched Buzz I find myself itching to comment!


In short Google Buzz is Google's attempt to move into the social media scene. I'm somewhat confused by my own statement as a few year's ago now I remember having an account with a site called Orkut that I never used and only signed up to because Google had just bought them. Orkut on the face of it is a social networking site, but I didn't really hang around to find out anymore than that.


So back to Buzz. A lot of people have made a lot of noise about Buzz and a lot of the noise has tended to be negative. That seems to be the trend with new technology. Dismiss it out of hand because it is different. To me, it's precisely because it's different that I often find myself enthusiastic.


My first 'buzz' strangely seems to capture my initial thoughts (it wasn't supposed to!):

I stand by my thoughts that it won't be a flash in the pan because Sergey Brin publicised it (although not necessarily for those reasons) and also my thinking that it will never be able to compete with Facebook because it wasn't around when Soical Media needed defining. Facebook was and as such became the standard bearer (in the same way as Hotmail did for web-based email).


However I think Google Buzz will settle down into a popular and effective Social Media tool in time. As my brother commented (a reply via email rather than a 'buzz', which I found strange):

It appears Google has gone for a Social Media aggregator rather than a separate networking or community environment. The feature that stands out most for me is the ability to add 'connected sites' to your Buzz feed. 

The premise seems to be that you connect all of your web based sites where information is dynamic and of interest to other people (the list also includes Blogger, YouTube, Google Chat although crucially not Facebook), and when you change your status on these sites, they are updated through Buzz. The idea being you no longer need to check countless sites to see the latest information, although presumably you need to log into countless sites to update your own status!


If Facebook were added in time this would be a distinct advantage. I can't see Buzz drawing huge amounts of new users to Gmail but I can see it being beneficial to existing Gmail users. My concern would be that this was not the intended outcome Google had in mind when they created Buzz. 


I will probably post again once I've had the chance to use Buzz a bit more, see if my experiences change my initial thoughts.
   


~~ update ~~


This piece has a bit more perspective around the security aspect, something I haven't got round to looking into but would appear important!


http://charman-anderson.com/2010/02/11/google-buzz-not-fit-for-purpose/